With a month left until Steam Next Fest, we started working on the campaign and the first introductory chapters. We currently aim to have 5 chapters in the demo, with the first 4 introducing the basics and the 5th being an updated version of the current Prologue. In this week's update, as well as with the next week's, you'll see a bunch of design adjustments happening all at once as we dust off design notes taken during the last few weeks and roll them into the build. There's also a steady stream of new visuals and sound effects. Buckle up!
STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN CORE MECHANICS
The biggest changes from this week's update:
Damage tokens are no longer removed at the end of the encounter, but remain with the characters.
When Damage tokens exceed character's Health stat, the character doesn't die but rather gets a new injury; injuries are now all permanent, and can only be treated at the Spire.
When Fatigue tokens exceed character's Endurance stat, the stat is reset while 3 Damage tokens are issued at once.
Fear tokens are no longer removed at the end of the encounter, but remain with the characters.
When Fear tokens exceed character's Courage stat, the character gets -20 mood (and retreats if this is in encounter).
SMALLER CHANGES IN MECHANICS
- Damage token used to issue extra Fear if owner already had Fear, this is now removed.
- Accumulated acid no longer rolls dice to issue "Acid burns" at the end of encounter.
- 1 Damage token that comes through, will remove 1 Restoration token if the target had any.
- Restoration tokens no longer remove Damage at the end of the encounter, but rather 3 Restoration tokens at the start of the turn remove 1 Damage token.
CHANGES IN SUBSTANCES, COOKING & CONCOCTING
- Bloodplaster, which used to remove one injury, now removes 3 Damage tokens
- Throatburner now removes 3 fear tokens, in addition to the other effects
- The base cost of cooking and concocting is now 2 Fatigue (was: 3)
CHANGES IN THE MAP OF PROLOGUE
- The map changed size, it is now more narrow
- There are fewer aggressive creatures seeded in the initial opponent parties
- There are no aggressive parties seeded in the immediate area at the start of the chapter
The chapter starts with 3 characters (was: 5)
2 additional characters are now available through activating the Anomaly objects
VISUAL UPDATES
- Reflection, Protection, Blindness and a few other tokens got their own dedicated animations that play when a target receives the token.
- There's a good dozen of new sound effects, mostly for consuming specific items
- Several locations that can be destroyed during encounter (e.g. Giggler Haunt, Abandoned Palace, Anomaly) now have their "destroyed" versions which are shown on the map after the successful encounter (was: we showed the same object, whether it was active or no longer active)
WHAT'S NEXT?
Next week, we'll ship updated visual assets for a few creatures (our artists worked on them this week). We also did preparatory work on the upcoming updates to Rule book, Lore book and Discovery book (we're splitting the Encyclopaedia into these three, for better focus). And we have a number of event changes that we'll roll in, as one package – from what you can do with specific objects and creatures to how much loot (and what sort of loot) do you get from each type of encounter. All eyes are on the Steam Next Fest now – we're doing our best to prepare the game for new players to try!